


Carwash Stories

by Lonewritersclub



Category: Scarecrow (1973)
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Bromance, Fluff and Angst, Friends to Lovers, Maxys Carwash, Mental Health Issues, Mental Instability, Turned intooo?, What Happened After
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-25
Updated: 2020-10-06
Packaged: 2021-03-07 03:20:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,277
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26100061
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lonewritersclub/pseuds/Lonewritersclub
Summary: You see, when Lion is talking, it's good news. It's a good day.Everything is back to normal.Business goes well. They are well.
Relationships: Francis Lionel Delbuchi/Max Millan, Max/Lion
Comments: 6
Kudos: 11





	1. Noise

Lion is quiet today. 

Max keeps track of that.

Of how much noise Lion makes. Of how much he talks and walks about. 

Max has to. He does, even if he wouldn't like to because it feels superstitious. He can't help it though. It’s instrumental knowledge to him. 

You see, when Lion is talking, it's good news. It's a good day. 

Everything is back to normal. 

Business goes well. 

Max washes the cars and keeps things in order. Lion helps with the waxing and keeps the customers happy as they wait. Each day after the clock ticks five, Max collects the money they made in that day from the cash register and walks over to the bank two blocks down. 

Meanwhile Lion tidies up at the garage turned carwash and the tiny office next to it and closes up.

Then when Max returns, they head upstairs of the carwash through the staircase stuck to the wall outside. There's the kitchen, bedroom, bathroom and even a small sitting area all neatly joined together over their business in a clean, if slightly worn out, little apartment.

The sun sets behind the windows while Lion cooks them up a scrappy hot meal and Max goes through the TV channels before settling on a clever talk show. When dinner is ready, they sit down and talk about the day, tomorrow or nothing at all. At other times, they head outside to meet with Frenchie and Coley at the bar to spend a few hours among good friends.

Otherwise, most often than not, they reside to the sitting area – maybe watch one of those western flics they play late in the evenings. If the picture doesn't keep Max entertained, Lion certainly will with his playful commentary of the whimsical action shown on screen. Max tries to take a few notes about how the cowboys manage to flick their guns out from their holsters so quickly during the standoffs. Lion laughs at him as he tries to imitate it with a wooden spatula but it ends up flying across the room and clattering against the wall and knocking a few books down from the shelf on its way.

By the time it's well and dark outside they head to the bathroom one at a time to settle down for bed. It's a one bedroom type of an apartment but that’s fine with them as they’d got used to sleeping in close proximity of each other on their first hitchhiking journey to Denver with little money to spare for separate lodging arrangements. Only thing is, nowadays they don’t waste room even in keeping their beds apart.

You see, after Lion was released from the hospital, he just couldn’t fall asleep. He kept twisting and turning around on his bed, getting tangled up in his own damn blanket and one night he even fell off of his bed and hit his head quite badly on the nightstand on the way.

After that incident Max decided to push the beds together so that Lion would have less of a chance of taking a tumbling down again. The unexpected advantage of this new arrangement also seemed to be that it helped calm Lion down significantly and he finally got some sleep into his head. Max wasn’t going to think too much about it nor about the mornings when he woke up with Lions fluffy dark hair ticking the underside of his jaw and his warm back resting against his chest. The important part about it all, at the end of the night, was that they both got a good night’s rest which also increased the probability of it becoming a good day.

Then again, sometimes you couldn’t have a good day no matter how well the previous night had gone. Today was one of those days. When there seemed to be something strange about the ray of the yellow morning light that shifted through the brown shades in Lion’s eyes in the wrong way. Made his feet be swallowed down into muddy barren pastures of cold temperatures and nothing and no one to see for miles and miles. Or it took him back on the ship he had once sailed, only now he was utterly alone, helpless and lost at sea.

This was a day when Lion was quiet.

He stayed in bed and wouldn’t drink the coffee Max brewed. He wouldn’t answer him when Max called out his name. When Max laid his hand on his skinny shoulder, his dark eyes would not focus on him. The expression on his face was despairingly blank and unseeing. The most frightening sight Max ever had to witness – and it kept happening time and time again.

And there was nothing Max could do to save them from it. From the dark clouds that fell over Lion’s mind in a hazy unforgiving web that barely let in any real light or truth.

Max would just make Lion take the same white pills he took every day but at that point, they didn’t do much to change the situation. They could only wait it out, Max knew it. The first time it happened, Max had called Lion’s doctor. Asked him _what the hell is this on about, I thought it meant you cured him when you signed his release!_ The doctor hadn’t been very helpful. Said that Lion was going to have some relapses in the first year of getting released from the hospital. That it was to be expected. Overtime though they would get fewer and shorter – hopefully. Otherwise, he might need to come back to Detroit for a little while longer if not only for his next check-up. In any case, _he’s fine. Just let him rest that day._

Well, there was nothing else Max could do. He would go downstairs and work the day by his lonesome. Each hour he would go up to check on Lion and see if he needed anything. At dinner time, Max would take his meal of last night’s leftovers to the bed and sit with him and try to get him to eat something as well. Most of the time he would do nothing but close his eyes tighter. Fortunately by the next day, he would usually be fine again. Although sometimes he wasn’t. Not for a few days.

During the night, Lion could not stop trashing about. He cried and he shouted and wanted to fight Max. But it was the last thing Max wanted. Instead he held Lion close, tried to desperately get him to calm down and sleep, or if nothing else, try to get him to talk about what was wrong. But Lion just stared back at him with wide scared eyes shining with the streetlight rebounding from his tears, not telling him anything – he was too terrified of the thoughts and ideas playing inside his head.

Max never really got to know what happened in Detroit. He just got his money out of Pittsburgh and once they were ready to release Lion from the hospital, they made their way back to Denver to stay with Coley and Frenchie for a little while, just until they could get their carwash up and running.

The doctors never told Max much either. Only that he should make sure Lion took his medicine every day and that he be faced with as little stress as possible. Max promised to do exactly that.

Lion didn’t want the girls know too much. He didn’t want to worry them for nothing, he said, so he led them to believe he had just got a stomach bug on the way and had to stay in Detroit while Max took care of his finances in Pittsburgh. But now he was fine. It was all alright.

Max didn’t want to upset Lion so he never questioned him too much about it. Then again, Max didn’t really know what he would do with the information even if he got it. He wasn’t sure if even Lion knew the answers if he were to ask for them.

All they could do was to go forward. Day by day. Run their carwash they had worked so hard to put up and keep the customers and themselves as happy as can be. They would take whatever came at them if necessary. They had to. They did. Most of the time, though, it was good.

Lion wasn’t quiet.

And Max was happy.


	2. Silence

It was mid-September in Denver. It was a warm day but it not an uncomfortably hot one. Just warm enough to let Lion to sit outside to greet and talk with the customers, and for Max not have to put on fourth sweater underneath his yellow-red work jacket.

The car washing business was going smoothly. Expenses were as expected, as jotted down in Max’s worn out notebook, down to the very percentage. People had cars and there was dirt on the ground. So when the people needed somewhere to clean up that dirt from their cars, that’s when they headed down to Maxy’s Car Wash and got their car’s shine back on. They drove into the large garage like setting with corrugated iron roofs, turned the engine off and then walked past the goofy looking scarecrow, as promised to Lion, hung up by the front door into the tiny office right next door.

Business was good and the people of Denver had accepted them as they were with welcoming wallets.

The only thing that has had them be still tight on the dollar despite of all the dough coming in thanks to the rainy Fall weather outside, have been the rather staggering hospital expenses from Lion’s stay. And when Lion finally cracked open his eyes – properly, not to just stare blankly out of the window but really looking at Max with those dark deep eyes – soon followed all the costs of getting him out of the gloomy white state hospital halls and get him into to Denver with Max where he belonged.

Then there were all the pills the doctors had prescribed Lion with. Max made sure to see he took them every day. There was no point in buying them if he wasn’t taking them. Besides, Max needed Lion to stay as he was, well and awake. He had a job to do after all: to keep the customers happy while they waited for their cars to be cleaned and do some waxing work. Above all, he needed to keep himself healthy for his and Max’s sake. He was the only one Max could trust.

All in all, though, things were manageable, and Max could see things only looking up for the future. That was why he was smiling even now as he buffered the bright red hood of their latest customer’s car.

In the background he could hear Lion conversing with the customer. She was clearly an uptown girl in her nice yellow dress and pretty blond curls, apple red lipstick across her mouth and white lace glows covering her fingers. She absentmindedly twirled a single glossy curl by her ear as she giggled at Lion’s ridiculous jokes and curled on herself with stomach cramping laughter at the most preposterous ideas Lion presented her with an almost non-comical tone of voice.

It was the small grin instead that always exposed him in the end.

“Ya know you gotta be real careful these days just because of that – first people just throw away the papers but next thing ya know, they are burning books in their yards and on the streets. You’d better just read ya funnies and then give ‘em to your neighbour or make a nice bed outta ‘em for ya cat. No need for some sorta coup, right? Just kings and queens from then on and nothing to read at all.”

More high pitched laughter. Max had no idea what Lion was even talking about by that point but if the girl liked it that was fine by him. Well… maybe not after all. A quirk was tugging the corner of his mouth downwards and gaze peeping up to glance in the direction of the register from behind his circular flimsy glasses. He had to shake his head to get himself out of it and turned his attention back to the bumper of the car. A few more giggles later, though, Max thought he was finished enough and washed off the residue of soap with a hose before quickly but carefully drying the car with a specific fine rag made for the job.

Max sauntered into the office then, wiping his hands on his jacket in an effort to dry them, stopping by the doorway. The girl turned her attention to him just after finishing off her latest charmed laugh, hand brought up to her mouth while curled in on herself as she leaned to the counter of the register. She quickly recomposed herself and stood up a little straighter in front of Max’ stern expression.

Lion merely looked over his shoulder to Max from where he was sitting on top the counter in relaxation with that usual smirk of his. “Hey”, he quickly greeted him in a breathy low voice. Max looked at the girl and waved his hand lazily towards the direction of the garage.

“Your car is washed and ready now. I’ll just go drive it out to the front so you can take it from there”, Max mumbled out to her while already beginning to leave the small space of the office. He still caught the little timid smile she gave him and the quiet “thanks” afterwards.

Max had his back already turned to them, a few feet from them, when he heard Lion talk to her again. “Don’t worry about it, he’s been acting like that all morning. So, you wanna pay in cash or…”

Max got into her car and was careful not to mess the interior up with his raggedy clothes. Easily he backed out of the garage and out to the small parking lot type of space between the little shabby looking buildings and drove it in front of the office where she could take it straight to the street. Leaving the motor running, he got out and walked to the open window of the office.

The girl got out with a happy lace gloved wave offered to Lion and pranced herself off in her flowy yellow dress to the driver’s seat. Max watched her drive off with one last big red smile sent to Lion when he came out to see her leave, his hands resting on the juts of his hips casually like usual.

“Have a nice day and come again!” Lion shouted after her over the bustling noise of the engine.

Finally, the shine of the car couldn’t be seen anymore when she took a right turn and vanished behind the next redbrick building. Max squinted his eyes out there in the sun. His newsboy hat didn’t do much for sharing shade

Lion looked over to him. He had that small smile playing on his lips like always but it held some mystique to it now.

“What’s with you today? You almost gave that nice lady a scare. Bit of a swanky lady but a nice one nonetheless.”

Max didn’t really want to respond to that. He had nothing good to say as explanation so he just brushed it off by turning around to go back to the office. He checked the register. It had a good amount of money in it – the girl’s crisp straight dollar bills stacked carefully in their respective slots.

Lion had followed Max to the office.

“Have you kept track of all the money going in and going out? ‘Cause you need to do that. You gotta jot everything down, the debet and the credit, all of it down on paper so I can show it later at the bank”, Max said as he riffled through the papers and worn notebooks laid on the counter next to the register and the small blue lamp.

“Sure I do. I’ve written all down there. Here”, Lion said as he gave Max one of the notebooks opened in the middle. “Dates and times all tracked down here. See”, he pointed with his finger to the margins of the notes.

Max had, once again, not much to say to that. Nothing good at least. He had got all riled up once again for practically nothing.

“Well… Good. You keep doing that and write the ins and outs clear and careful”, Max ended up with and shut the notebook putting it back on the counter before leaving back for the garage.

Lion kept looking at him thoughtful and quiet, and followed him into the garage, too. While Max went to drain the red water buckets, Lion crossed his arms over his chest as he leaned against the doorway. 

Max tried to work while under Lion’s soft scrutiny but it was really starting to send him off the rails by the time he was drying the sponges at the large porcelain sink.

“What are you watching at, huh? Why’d you gotta stand there like that and stare at me?” Max eventually piped off, looking over his shoulder accusingly. Lion looked to the ground, slightly taken aback by Max’s outburst but having got rather used to it by now. He still shied himself off, scratching at the bed of his elbow quietly.

“Nothin’, Max. Just nothing better to do.”

Max squeezed the yellow sponge in his hands tightly. “Well how about you help me out here since that’s your job. You know, we both gotta work here, fair and square. Remember?”

Lion lifted himself from the doorway and starting walking towards Max at the sink.

“Yeah, I remember. But what can I do? You never let me do anything other than stay in the office, sit around and do all the paperwork. And even when I do that, writing and licking all the letters shut, chatting with the customers, you still come in and have another look around and eventually do it all yourself.”

Max dropped the sponge into the sink and then aggressively spinned around on his heels to face Lion.

“Because you can’t handle the work, Lion! You can’t handle the _stress_! I have to do everything around here just to make sure you wouldn’t have another breakdown. So can’t you please just let me take care of things without making them even harder for me with your whining about every little thing I have to do. Because, after all, I do it all for you!”

Max was out of breath by the end of his sentence and it was met with loud silence inside the garage. Lion was staring at the cracked concrete floor intently, holding the hem of his pullover in his hands awkwardly, not moving in the slightest. Like a prey hiding from a predator.

Suddenly Max immediately regrets saying everything he just said. At least the way he said it. Max sat down on the stool next to the sink and sighed out with a pang of guilt. Lion became less scared by that and lets go the hold on his shirt.

”I’m sorry. I know what you mean. And I do appreciate what you’re doing for me which is why I want to repay you for it by giving you a hand. But… There’s no need to be cruel, Max. You know I can’t help this”, Lion told him quietly, voice wavering but his glassy gaze slowly if timidly looking up again. Max held his hands up in remorseful admittance.

“No, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have been like that. I know you want to help. I’ll admit I’ve restricted your workload here but that’s because I know you still have only limited working ability. The doctors told me to have you resting first and foremost, and if everything goes well, I can move you to do something a bit more challenging.”

Lion’s eyebrows slightly shot up at that. He swallowed down the tears that were certainly stuck in his throat.

“It’s been months, Max. I’m fine now. I saw my kid, I saw that Annie had been dishonest with me. I even got to give my kid his lamp. I _can_ wash cars.”

Max dried his hand in one of the rags hanging of the sink and walked over to Lion who had stopped by the pool of water, that was running down to the drain, where the car had previously been.

“I hear you. But it’s different now. You’re different now. It could happen again”, Max said almost softly. Lion looked up to him, shaking his head.

“It’s not. It’s over. It’s over and dealt with and we don’t gotta think about it no more”, he retorted but when his gaze met Max’s, his eyes shifted to look anywhere else but at him. Max placed a hand on Lion’s wool covered shoulder.

“Don’t worry about it, Lion. I don’t mind it. I know who you are. You and me, we’re in this together for the long run. You just need to keep your head straight.”

Lion coyly glanced up at him. He didn’t look so shaken up anymore.

“Then what was that with the lady then? Why’d you get all angry about it?”

That put the stone back in Max’s throat and he swallowed around it nervously as he casually took back his hand from Lion’s shoulder.

“Well, uh, I just… She didn’t really strike me as a very proper customer. I mean, she was clearly flirting with you and that, I think, is rather an off-putting thing for a customer to do. Probably thought she could get a discount or something by being like that with you.”

A sly grin grew on Lion’s face.

“Okay, I see…” he commented back with a string of giggles as he turned to retreat to the office. “You didn’t give her one, did you? We can’t be giving away discounts whenever you please. Like with that old timer last Thursday”, Max yelled after him.

“He was short five cents, Max! I would hardly call that a discount. The old pop just had an accident with remembering to get the right amount with him”, Lion replied with sneaky smile before disappearing from the doorway and into the office. Max didn’t bother to add anything to that. He knew he was just behaving this rough because he was irritated but it didn’t stop him from acting exactly that.

The rest of the day passed quieter thankfully. A few customers came in. A really nice one came in just before they we’re closing and Max got to wash his first Chevy Monte Carlo. A pretty, gleaming black one it was. Although for himself, no, Max wouldn’t bother wasting his money on one. He wasn’t that kind of guy. Lion took care of the waxing and Max kept an eye on the process just to make sure he wouldn’t leave any scratch on the beautiful paint job. Lion rolled his eyes at him.

When the work day is finished and they’ve settled down into their little apartment above the carwash, Max held his arm across the back of the couch and looked over at Lion sitting on the other side of it. He was focused on watching the silly talkshow playing on the TV and listening to the guest band before the hollering live audience.

He looked so small, for some reason, thought Max. Sitting there in the corner of the couch, seeming so alone and vulnerable, with the flashing lights of moving pictures shining off on his face. Max still felt bad about how he had yelled at him earlier that day. It was against the very words he had uttered to him. Now a sudden ache rouse inside his chest and despite it not being what he’d usually do, he needed to do so. After all, everything ever did nowadays seemed to be for Lion too.

“Come here”, Max said to him. Lion could barely hear him and his soft words from the sound of the tunes seeping off the television. But it was as if he wondered whether he had heard him at all that Lion then glanced over to Max who curled his finger at him.

Lion stared at him for a second or two, and Max gave an expression of telling him give it a rest, before Lion broke into one of his shameless childlike smiles and shifted over to sit closer to Max on the couch. Max wrapped his arm around his shoulders as Lion’s warm side rested against his chest, and smiled a little now too when Lion couldn’t see it. Lion would know what it was about without seeing or hearing Max’s reasons for the things he did.

Together they watched the show until the end before they eventually took rest for the night. They didn't change positions from the couch to the bed but that was their business, nobody else's. Lion was quiet but Max could feel the upwards curve of his lips against his chest so it was alright. Max had his fingers carded through Lion's dark mane and rubbed his head until he fell asleep. Tomorrow Max promised to be better. Do better. And if Lion was good too, he would try to let him do more things on his own. Although, if some other lady came along to talk sweet nothings to him again, Max would make sure Lion had something more important to do than keep the customers happy. That was for certain. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh, I'm so happy to see that there are many more fans to this film than me, myself and I!  
> I hope you've liked this story of mine of what might have happened after the ending. I believe I'll leave this fic with this chapter as I'm too busy to continue any time soon, but I'd be glad to read some stories of yours if there came to be some of this pair. 
> 
> Until then, let me know how you liked this chapter :)

**Author's Note:**

> Hi there!
> 
> Okay, so this is one of my favorite ever films and I do hope whoever reads this has also seen the film. I mean, I have a hard time imagining how you would otherwise get here. I tried to see if anyone else had written anything for this fandom and at first there was nothing so I decided to give it a try. Now there is another out there already which is fabulous but I wanted to write something too. So anyway, this is kind of my take on how things might have followed suit after where the film ended. 
> 
> I truly love open end -stories. It gives the viewer or reader so much room for inspiration to keep thinking about the film and where it might have gone. It's the best gift a film can give the audience. At least when it's done right. Other times it just seems like the story ended before anything really happened. However, I think Scarecrow is the perfect example of a great open ending. And it's such a brilliant and beautiful and heartwarming and humorous and authentic film altogether in covering the human condition, and it is just absolutely one of my favorites!
> 
> I hope you liked this short story as well. I'll do another chapter where there will be more actual dialogue too. But this is just a foundation kind of. Let me know your thoughts on the film and on this follow-up if you like. I'd love to hear them! Thanks for reading!


End file.
